


Panacea

by PotatoVanGogh



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Angst, Cloti - Freeform, F/M, Grief, Loss, Post-ACC, Pre-ACC, Tifa-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25240084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotatoVanGogh/pseuds/PotatoVanGogh
Summary: Tifa never had the chance to say goodbye to the people she loves most.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 27
Kudos: 43





	Panacea

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to post this as one of the entries for CT/ZA Endless Summer 2020 but I figured that this chapter doesn't really fit in one of the prompts so I'll be posting this as an introduction for the one (which is this story's chapter two) that's going to be my main entry for one of the prompts.
> 
> Thank you so much to the lovely Karmi and MarleNadia for beta-ing this chapters. I love you both! Also shout out to the lovely people in the Final Heaven Cloti Server for being such great people in supporting writers and artists! Thank you for inspiring me to write again.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy reading this!

_“Everything comes and goes as it wishes, even without goodbye. If this is how things are, I don’t want to love anyone again.”_

_\- Eight by IU_

* * *

Her life had always been full of loss.

It was a hard pill to swallow but Tifa had long accepted the fact that life had the habit of taking away the people she cherishes most. Every day she had to remind herself of this because she needed to push through. She needed to move forward or else she would break and then the people around her would break too. And that is the last thing she wanted to happen. 

However…acceptance didn’t always mean that she was used to it. She didn’t even know if she would ever get used to losing people. 

It all started with the first person who left her. The one who slipped through her fingers when she was a child. The one responsible for that hole of growing up without the guidance of a mother. As far as she could remember, her mother always had a weak body; her father said so too. She would often see her resting her tired legs even after just minutes of walking. See her struggling to lift herself up and catch her breath. At night she could hear her coughing loudly as her father tried to soothe her from the pain.

As a child, she didn’t think much of seeing her taking so many pills every morning and the evening too. But the longer the years stretched, the more she could see her mother’s frail body breaking until the disease fully took over. She could no longer get up from bed without the help of her father. Tifa herself would as she took in her mother’s big hands into her tiny ones and guided her throughout the house all the while Tifa did her best to support her mom’s weight). Sometimes, she used to secretly blame her mother for being so sickly because it was too hard to understand --guilt consumed her immediately after.

One day, her beloved mother just didn’t wake up anymore...

It was quick and slow all at once. She remembered coming home to a quiet house after playing, finding her father crying beside her mother’s bed. Everything became blurry after.

The innocent pleading. The realization. The crying. The _screaming_.

* * *

 _“Mama...mama, wake up. Stop joking around mama.” Her voice cracked and she shook her mama's still body harder. It was a cry for help. Her mama needed to wake up so that she could wake up from this nightmare too. She couldn’t lose her mama. Her mama promised that she wouldn’t leave them. She turned to her papa and pleaded with him, her little voice broken and it was filled with false hope and anticipation._

_“Papa, tell mama to wake up. She'll wake up, right? Papa, she can’t leave. She needs to wake up.”_

_Her papa could only stay silent and hug her_ _._ _S_ _he felt wet tears coming out from her papa too_ _,_ _but she pushed him away and returned to facing her mama on the bed. The air was heavy. Her chest was heavy. Everything was heavy._

_“Mama...please.”_

_She couldn’t breathe. Her silent tears became sobs and then her sobs became wails. Tifa kept shaking her._ **_Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!_ **

_But her mama didn’t wake up and her papa pulled her away from the bed. She thrashed around in his arms. She needed to go back to her mama’s side!_

**_Mama! No! Don’t leave. Don’t leave. Don’t leave!_ **

_And even when her papa was there comforting her, crying with her, Tifa suddenly felt alone for the first time in her life._

* * *

She had been so naive to think that was the end of it. 

It all spiraled downwards from there.

The memories of her father and Nibelheim flashed in her mind like a film strip, each one replaying some of the most painful events to ever happen in her life. The burning houses, the screaming villagers, the bleeding bodies, a loose mad man and...and…her dying father.

* * *

 _It had hurt to breathe._

_Tifa didn’t know where to go. Every corner of the village was burning, alight with fire. Where’s her father? She needed to find him fast!_

_She tried her hardest to drown out the screams of the people and continue searching for her father. Her body was shaking but she paid it no mind_ _-_ _this was not the time to be weak, she needed to find her papa._

**Papa, please, where are you…**

_Her head was spinning and she was suffocating as she inhaled the smoke. So many dead bodies…but there was a flicker of hope because her father was not one of them._

_Or so she thought as she stood at the gates of the reactor, watched as blood spread across her father’s chest, like the blooming petals of a red flower._

_All_ _the_ _air was knocked out of her lungs and for a moment, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel anything. It felt like watching a clone of herself staring at the unmoving figure of her father far away. Her body felt like an empty shell until she was kneeling, hunched over his corpse. The tears were slow to appear but when they did it was like a dam breaking through its walls._

_She suddenly felt like a child again. An eight-year-old who lost a parent._

_“Papa… wake up.”_

_“Papa, you told me that you wouldn’t leave me like mama did.” She was hyperventilating, choking on her words, but she didn’t care because_ _the flames_ _of anger were eating up every part of her. It felt like her heart was pumping the fire through her body._

_Tifa clenched her fist. The fiery grip of_ _rage_ _was clutching deep within her soul. Her mind's a blank canvas with only the word revenge written across with red ink._

**_Revenge._ **

**_Revenge._ **

**_Kill Sephiroth!_ **

_With his sword in her hand, she entered the mansion, sealing her fate._

* * *

Still, all wasn’t lost. She had survived the nightmare, she had made it out alive. Gaia knows how Tifa didn’t want to be a survivor, not at first. In the back of her mind, the guilt will always have a place in her heart. It was a hard journey to recovery and healing—and even then she knew she didn’t heal completely, she had fought to live and eventually built a second home in the slums of Midgar’s Sector 7. Not quite like what she had in Nibelheim and probably never will be, but it was a start. It was a new beginning. A new life. And a new path to vengeance against Shinra, one of her big motivations to keep going. The motivation that led her to join AVALANCHE and meet Barret, Marlene, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge 

She learned to live and love people enough to want them in her life. Enough to seek comfort in their presence. In a blink of an eye, the people in Sector 7 wormed their way into her heart, making a place there and she on theirs. 

The longer she stayed and connected, the more she thought that maybe...maybe she can live peacefully again within the new community she cherished. Even if somehow she managed to join a rebel group.

Even if sometimes, thinking about Nibelheim hurt so much. Even with the knowledge that she would ultimately forget what made Nibelheim her home, for there was no one left to remember her. No one to connect with...not until _he_ showed up again in her life.

Wishful thinking because in the end, her new home was taken away from her too.

* * *

 _She can’t accept this._

_She can’t._

_The flames felt too similar to her once beloved village. Everywhere she looked,_ _there_ _was debris, the once lively sector_ _becoming_ _a wasteland… A reminder of the wrong decisions they made to survive. A reminder of Shinra’s power and their capability for destruction. All she could do was stare at the consequences of their actions. It hurt._

_It hurt._

_Her mind drifted to the memory of Jessie slowly fading away in Cloud’s arms. The memory of Cloud telling her Biggs didn’t make it. Now, both of them were crushed under the plate. Not only the two of them but many others who were not fortunate_ _enough_ _to evacuate on time. She was suddenly crushed with the realization that their blood stained her hands. If only...if only she did better. If only she convinced Barret and the others more...if only…if only…if only…_

 _There were too many what ifs. Too many regrets. These people shouldn’t have died. The plate shouldn’t have fallen._

_Why, why, why does this keep happening?!_

_Did the planet tell her she didn’t deserve a second life? Didn’t deserve a second home? A second family?_

_She felt so weak and powerless and useless and_ _angry_ _and_ _guilty…_ _so so guilt_ _y_ _._

 _The world was too cruel. The innocents never should have paid the price for their sins. She wanted to scream to the gods that this was unfair for them. That they should have punished her and not them. As Tifa stared at the dismantled pieces of Seventh Heaven, she thinks that…_

_The planet is too cruel indeed._

_For this was her punishment after all._

* * *

A small part of her was thankful for being able to chase Sephiroth. It gave her something to think about other than the loss of her second home and her friends. The distraction helped a bit but nothing was set in stone and they were still in danger. It was hard but it was for the greater good. 

She thinks a part of her wanted to redeem herself and she knows it's selfish. She hates herself even more. 

One silver lining she could think of was the companion of the lovely flower girl, with her bright emerald eyes and dazzling smile.

Aerith was one of the rare people who shined despite the harshness of the world. It made her believe that everything would be alright in the end. Because that was how Aerith made you feel. Like sunshine on a gloomy day. She made people smile and laugh and just...feel the moment. Tifa sometimes envied her positivity. She envied how the flower girl could brighten up the room with her presence, her ability to make people feel...lighter. It was hard to imagine such a lovely person like her _gone_. So she told herself that her friend wouldn’t disappear. She couldn’t.

Gaia knew how much they needed that kind of light in their lives.

Yet, somehow, she was proven wrong once again, once more.

* * *

 _This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sephiroth wasn’t supposed to show up. He wasn’t supposed to kill her. But as he_ _descended_ _with his sword ready to take another life, Tifa was frozen in shock._

**_No!_ **

_When she snapped out of her stupor and ran to be by Aerith’s side_ _,_ _s_ _creaming for her, Aerith was dead. Sephiroth had successfully slain her and_ _none_ _of them had done anything to prevent it. Misery_ _bubbled_ _up inside her but she pushed it down_ _;_ _this was not the time to think about herself_ _. S_ _he gazed towards Cloud’s pain stricken face._ _W_ _as it really wrong for her to grieve as well?_

_She shook that thought and tried to keep it together, even_ _as_ _she watched Cloud_ _let Aerith’s body slowly sink_ _in_ _to_ _the depths of the lake. Yuffie’s sobs were loud and the only thing_ _she could hear_ _in the stillness of the forest. Tifa was afraid that if she moved all_ _of_ _her control would break_ _,_ _so she didn’t. She remained still. Tr_ _ied_ _to process everything. Even when they_ _left_ _the place. She had been mindful of all of them, especially Cloud. Afraid that he’ll break down again anytime. She pushed the violent sadness down._

_It was only at night, when the others were asleep, that she slipped out of their camp and screamed until her throat_ _ached_ _. It was only then that she let the tears fall, that she let her control break and break and break. Moments with Aerith floated in her mind after the grief retreated back and she whisper_ _ed_ _._

_“We were supposed to have our shopping date.”_

* * *

Tifa liked to think that Cloud was one of the few constants in her life. They were separated many times but they always found their way back to each other somehow. They parted as teens, reunited in Nibelheim, then separated again until they had their unexpected encounter at the train station. He ran away from her at the Northern Crater and she found him in Mideel, mako poisoned. Eventually, they truly met again in the Lifestream, where she entered his mind and they broke down each other’s barriers. 

She didn’t know if that meant something but she tried not to overthink it. Cloud was here. Cloud was the last connection of her home. Cloud was a constant and it didn’t matter he didn’t think the same. Cloud was home for her. He was never a goodbye. After the defeat of Sephiroth, Tifa hoped that they could put all of it past them and start anew, for her and him and their friends. Maybe this time she could live life normally now. With Barret entrusting Marlene to them, maybe they could build and be happy with their little family. 

It was tough the first few months, her doubts getting the best of her, but her friends held her up. Cloud became an anchor for her and for that she was grateful. So grateful to have him. So grateful to love him. They were slowly but surely getting to that happiness they wanted. They rebuilt the bar and he created his own business. Sometimes the three of them would go out and have fun, nothing fancy or flashy, but simple, just the way they liked it. They bonded and it was a bliss to see him smile (and in rare cases laugh). Tifa thinks that this was enough, even if she knew she craved more. As long as they were happy, as long as he was happy.

Yet she could feel him slip away more and more from her grasp and she didn’t know how and why. He started to come home less and if he did, he was always surrounded by a heavy atmosphere. He became unresponsive to her calls. No more late-night talks, only the drunk nights where he would drink himself dry. And it hurt. It hurt. 

It hurt.

She did her best to smile. To make things right. It wasn’t enough but she wouldn’t give it up. 

_I just want him to be happy_ _._

Things seemed okay when Denzel came into their lives for a short period of time but the distance came back. Ultimately, one day, Cloud just...didn’t return to them anymore. No warnings. No goodbyes. Her mind became muddled with doubts she thought she’d overcome. They scratched their claws and whispered in her head. Dark thoughts. The canvas was dipped in black ink. 

Was he not happy here anymore? 

Did she do something wrong? 

Did he want to leave? 

Was she not enough of a reason to stay? 

Did she push him too much? 

Why? 

Why? 

Why?

In the end, she realized that love was a curse, because the people she loves always leave. And they leave without ever saying goodbye.

* * *

 _“Cloud?” Tifa called as she stared at his tense back in the doorway. He looked like he was ready to go, ready to leave, and not just for a simple delivery. Her chest felt heavy with nervousness and something els_ _e_ _—_ _she knew something was about to happen. Something bad. He didn’t turn his head to face her but he did murmur under his breath, softly and quietly. She didn’t know if he meant for her to hear or not but she did so anyway._

_“I’m leaving.”_

_Her heart beat faster and faster._

_“‘You’re going to come back home, right? After your delivery?” In the back of her mind, she already knew the answer. She saw him nod tersely_ _, but she knows it’s a_ _lie, she_ **_knows_ ** _. He w_ _alked out of the door_ _,_ _but_ _she caught what he said._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_As she listened to the roar of the engine and the wheels of the motorcycle running away from the bar, she spoke in a hushed tone, filled with sorrow._

_“Me too.”_

_Cloud never came back._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you can leave a review because that's really appreciated! Constructive criticisms are welcome :)


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